PROTESTS have continued in northern Syria demanding United Nations action and an end to international silence after the grim discovery of internment camps where women have been brutally tortured by Turkish-backed militia.

Thousands of people displaced from the peaceful canton of Afrin in the semi-autonomous Kurdish enclave known as Rojava took to the streets today to demand justice for the women held in the torture centres.

They marched from the hospital in Afrin to the Berxwedan camp, displaying banners calling for the global community to “hear the screams of Afrin’s women.”

This and other recent demonstrations have been triggered by the discovery of “torture camps” at the end of May.

Mainly Kurdish and Yazidi women were held in the camps after being abducted by members of the Hamza Division, a militia also operating in Libya, where it is fighting on behalf of the UN-backed Government of National Accord.

Footage circulating on social media appears to show the women being tortured and stripped naked in the camps, amid allegations of rape and sexual abuse.

At a rally held today, Afrin executive council president Siraz Hemo condemned the brutal treatment of women by Turkish-backed mercenaries.

“These crimes will never break the will of women who have led the revolution in Rojava,” she told the crowd.

Kongreya Star spokeswoman Newroz Hasim warned that international bodies’ failure to speak out encouraged the crimes and atrocities being committed in Turkish-occupied parts of Syria.

Europe-wide Kurdish women’s rights organisation TJK-E argued earlier this month that “the international institutions which remain silent on the atrocities committed in front of the world public are as responsible for this brutality as Turkey.”

Ankara’s military has allied with the myriad of jihadist groups operating under umbrella of the Syrian National Army – formerly known as the Free Syrian Army – in what has been described as an ethnic cleansing operation targeting Syria’s Kurdish population.

As many as 300,000 people have been internally displaced and Syrian Democratic Council spokeswoman Ilham Ahmed spoke on Monday of a Turkish project to change the demography of the region and obliterate its historical Kurdish identity.

Women have been particularly targeted, with one example being the extrajudicial execution of Kurdish politician Hevrin Khalef, of the Future Syria Party, last October at the hands of the Turkish-backed Ahrar al-Sharqiya militia.

On Sunday, the body of 16-year-old Malak Nabin Khalil was found dumped in the Azaz region, two weeks after Ankara-supported mercenaries from the Sultan Murad Brigade abducted her from the village of Derwish in the Afrin canton.